Well, I've been called weird before; I just don't like to believe it. I may have to, though, if other thumbnails are the same size.

I can't remember when I first noticed this shocking predicament, but it's like looking at two different hands. Well, yes, they are different hands, but you'd figure on the same person they'd be the same size, give or take a smidgeon or two.

This difference is much too noticeable to be a smidgeon.

It might be what Mom always said does it really matter in the long run? No, but in the short run it's iffy.

See what's happening to me? I'm losing my mind, stressing about odd things. It's a natural outcome, I'm sure, of trying to clean closets and drawers. I just can't handle the pressure. I go in with determination and come out a whipped puppy who can't give up that chewed-up sock.

I even brought in the big gun - Dee Coleman, of Livermore. Everybody thinks she's such a fine woman, so caring and helpful, but I've got big news for you - she's a tyrant, a queen bee intent on annihilation of anything that may get in the way of neat. She about had a heart attack when she opened my living room closet.

She didn't get hurt, so why the squeal? Nothing could have fallen out with those yard sticks criss-crossed in the opening, so her scream seemed more than a little melodramatic if you ask me.

Dee helped in the basement one day about a year ago and didn't come back. She said she would, but all I could get her to say was "You only threw away a small piece of paper."

What's the point, I ask. Paper stuff means a lot to me, so she ought to compliment my courage for throwing that one piece away.

For instance, out of the depth of stuff pushed into this closet was a sheet of paper with one of life's greatest warnings on it - plenty important enough to keep. "Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in her shoes. That way, if she gets angry, she'll be a mile away and barefoot."

You just can't go wrong heeding that advice.

We also uncovered a clipping from the newspaper I worked for in May 1999. My column that day, headlined "Collection growing on dining room table can cause problem," proved what I've contended all along. I'm getting better. All my stuff now gets shoved into a closet. Back then it laid around on my dining room table.

Back then my husband wanted it clean so he could sit at the table with his paper and coffee and watch the birds at our feeder outside. I figured he could put his paper on my stuff and hold his coffee cup.